Light Meander

West Riverfront Park, Nashville, Tennessee, USA, 2015.

Light Meander, a sculpture in Nashville’s new West Riverfront Park, forms a nexus between the Cumberland River and downtown Nashville. The curvilinear form of the sculpture is based on the meanders of the Cumberland River as it passes through Davidson County.

More than representing the river, the art mimics its dynamic phenomena through a variety of effects of natural and artificial light. The river-facing side is finished with reflective stainless steel plate eliciting distorted mirrored experiences. On the top of the city-facing side of the sculpture, beginning at the point on the sculpture where Nashville occurs along the Cumberland River, color-changing LED strip lights illuminate horizontally inset acrylic rods, creating a textured ribbon of electric light at night. The LED colors are inspired by changing colors of the river through different seasons. They are programmed for effects that are specific to annual events such as historic flood anniversaries and holidays. Below the acrylic tubes are mirror finish stainless steel tubes of the same dimension as the acrylic tubes. At the lowest bend of the sculpture wood slats in the same dimension form an immersive sculptural bench. The very top of the sculpture, facing the river, and the underside of the bench are textiles of reflective stainless steel guitar picks, creating wind-activated sounds and shimmers of light that are inviting to the touch.

The art was commissioned by the Metro Nashville Arts Commission and fabricated and installed by Silo Workshop. Guitar picks were custom fabricated by Dunlop Manufacturing.